Welcome to Vox Manor
by Dayanara
Summary: After flunking out of college Morrigan knew that nothing she wanted was going to come easy. She took a chance and now she's living in squalor in the backwards end of nowhere, and she can't help wondering: has she made a terrible mistake? How far is she willing to go to get what she always wanted? May contain World Adventures Spoilers. I don't own the sims, no profit is being made.
1. Chapter 1

Morrigan grimaced as the map spread over her steering wheel slipped down between her knees and she briefly took her eyes off the road to fish it out again. When she looked back up something small and dark was streaking into the road from an empty, ploughed field to her left – a racoon, perhaps, or maybe a stray cat – and, shrieking, she slammed her foot onto the brake. The wheels of her truck spun and slid across the mud until she finally came to a stop.

Moaning, she fell forwards to rest her forehead against the steering wheel. Today had not been pleasing.

The road was so bumpy to start with that she had no idea whether she'd hit the little animal or not, but a glance in her rear view mirror showed no dark shape lying in the pale mud, so she bit her lip regretfully and lifted the map back up, this time staying stationary in the road. It wasn't like anyone else was going to come along, after all.

She should be there. She should be almost on top of it, she was sure of it, but there was nothing but some old, disused train tracks to her left and fields – a barn in each – on either side of her. Perhaps a little further, she thought, just a little further, then she would turn around.

It turned out to have been the correct decision. As her old truck juddered over the top of the hill the town came into view, and she was there. Twinbrook. Her new home.

Except not quite.

"What?" she snapped, infuriated, as she pulled closer to the rusting water tower and was forced to slow to a stop. There was a fence. A goddamn fence, stretched right across the road and a few metres to either side, where the ground rose up again. There was no way she was getting the big, hulking truck around it.

She pushed the driver's side door open – it complained in its usual way, creaks and groans and cracks and flaking metal paint drifting to the ground – and stepped out, her boot instantly sucked into the mud. Ignoring the ooze sinking into the stained suede she stepped forwards and examined the fence. Flimsy, made of a pale, soft wood. She could probably splinter it with her hands if she tried, she was certainly strong enough. It looked mouldy too, as if it had been stood there for years and everyone had just forgotten about it.

There was no-one around. No noises apart from the birds tweeting in the wild trees lining the road. There was no way she was going back and trying to get back around – she'd got lost twice already and she could _see_ the damn town if she craned her neck. Nope. No chance of going back.

Morrigan wiped her sweaty hands. On the other side of the fence was real tarmac, no more muddy back roads. A real road. The stop sign on the fence made her pause for a moment, wondering whether or not she was driving on private land and whether she'd be fined for trespassing if she lingered long enough.

So she didn't linger for long. Glancing around to check that she was really alone she climbed back into her truck, wiping her muddy boots on the grim carpet and zipping up her jacket before putting her foot down and ploughing right through the fence, scattering shards of soft wood across the cracked black surface of the road. The stop sign twirled across her bonnet and lodged itself in a tree to her left. Right. That was done. Onwards.

She stopped again just beyond the next junction, this time pulling a sheet of handwritten instructions down from where they had been tucked neatly above the sun visor. It was her own handwriting, the instructions having been relayed to her down the phone by the agent she had been supposed to meet half an hour ago to pick up the keys to her new house. She'd set off nearly nine hours ago, and the journey had only been supposed to take five.

_End of Puddlewick Drive, turn left before the bridge. Go past stadium, straight on over dam, turn left before estate. Take next left before dam. Turn right. 26 Herschel's Pond Road._

Right. Puddlewick Drive? To her right – over the rickety-looking wooden bridge – was a street of large, opulent manor houses and mansions. Most of them had pools. She decided it was unlikely her new house was anywhere amongst them, and so ignored the street, instead driving a little further onwards until… Success! The sports stadium, it had to be. Gingerly, she drove around it, them spotted the dam a little further along. She was on the right track.

She missed the turning before the estate and found herself driving through a nice neighbourhood of modern-looking houses, brightly-lit streets and barking dogs. Glancing back, she saw the turning she'd missed and turned around, getting it right the second time and leaving the friendly street lights behind.

The ground here was marshy, pooling water filling every dip in the land. Surely there wouldn't be houses here? Maybe she'd written the instructions down wrong? She should go back to town and ask someone…

Oh.

_Oh._

"Oh," she said out loud, for good measure.

It was a cabin. No - it could barely even be called a cabin. It was wooden, built above two separate pools of muddy water on thick stilts. She needed to climb two sets of stairs to even get to the front door. From the top level a dishevelled estate agent was sat on the grimy decking, legs dangling through the gaps in the rusty metal fencing. As she watched he waved, then slapped at a patch on his neck – mosquitoes, maybe. Perfect.

Morrigan stepped out of the truck, her lip unconsciously curling as she stared up in dismay at her new house. The orphanage had been better than this! She'd known she hadn't had a very big budget, but _this_? Olga had said she'd done the best she could, but this was below ridiculous. She'd phone her later, see if there hadn't been a mistake.

"Hi," Morrigan called up at the estate agent, who stood up and wiped at the backs of his trousers. She ascended the first set of creaky wooden steps nervously, waiting for them to splinter underneath her feet. They didn't, they held her. Just. The second set was longer, she noticed with a grimace. On this bottom level of the building sat a dirt-encrusted, rusting grill, and a washing machine. A washing machine, outside? It barely looked functional. The thick, square pillars holding up the second level looked functional, at least. It wasn't like there was a lot of weight to hold up, anyway.

"Miss… Vox?" he asked nervously, extending one sweaty hand, as she reached the top of the second set of stairs.

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Pleasure."

He noticed the unimpressed look on her face and his smile became a little sympathetic. "I've got your key for you, and a spare just in case. Welcome to Twinbrook."

She nodded slowly. "Okay."

"It's a nice town," he said quietly. "Low crime. Lots of jobs."

"Yeah, I… I know. I'm supposed to start working at the grocery store tomorrow."

"Oh! Well, that's nice. You'll like that."

"Is the whole town like…" she gestured around at the muddy gloom, thinking of the beautiful manor houses she'd seen before disbelievingly, and he laughed nervously.

"No," he blinked and licked his thin lips. "You're below the dam at the moment, on the flood plains. Her eyebrows shot up and he hastened to console her. "Don't worry, it's never actually been flooded since the dam was built. Once you get up into the town proper it's much…"

"Drier?"

He smiled and nodded and Morrigan sighed, looking around at the greenery. Standing in the corner of what she was fairly certain was her land was a tall willow tree, obviously decades old, and similar foliage surrounded the plot. She could deal with that.

A mosquito landed on her bare throat and bit. That was going to be less easy to deal with.

"Anyway," said the estate agent, slapping at his exposed wrists as more mosquitoes landed. "I'm going to leave you to get… settled in. You have my number?" Morrigan nodded. "Alrighty then. Maybe I'll see you around town?"

She nodded silently, staring at the key in her hand.

"Good, then. It was nice to meet you, Miss Vox."

"Mmhmm."

She approached the door as he descended the stairs and disappeared down the road. It was whitewashed wood, a lamp with a rusty metal shade hanging from the wall next to it. There was no visible switch. Inside, maybe?

The key was difficult to turn in the door but it came open eventually, letting some light from outside into the grim hovel.

"Ohhh… God!" Morrigan snapped, staring into the gloom. The walls were undecorated wood and grey cinderblock, the floor uncarpeted boards. The phone on the wall and the bare bulbs hanging down from the ceiling were the only signs of electricity. She flipped the switch and the lights flickered on, and when she picked up the phone there was a dial tone – so everything was functional, at least. There was an almost empty bookshelf, a sofa, a table and two chairs, a rickety-looking double bed and a chest of drawers, along with a tiny kitchen area. And that was it. A door led through to a dark, dingy bathroom, stained porcelain seeming to mock her as she looked down at it. She had to use that. Dear God, she had to live here! The one mirror on the wall was cracked and warped, she could barely make out her face in it. That would have to go. There were no blinds on the windows but she supposed it didn't matter, she hadn't seen any other houses in the immediate area so it wasn't like anyone was going to come looking.

She stripped off her jacket – old, cracked leather – and laid it down gingerly on the small dining table.

"Welcome to Vox Manor," she muttered sarcastically, staring around at her new home in dismay. With a deep sigh she pulled out a book from the sparse selection the previous owner had left in the bookshelf (all dog-eared and worn), which turned out to be some kind of electrical manual. Well, if there was one thing she knew how to do it was handle a wrench, so she settled back on the creaky sofa and prepared herself for an awful afternoon.

A/N - I decided to start writing up my sim's life story a while back because I'm _that_ kind of boring. I'm not really sure where this is going but it'll probably include spoilers for World Adventures, although it won't follow exactly because that would be really tedious.

Literally all I own of this at this point is the design of my character, everything else belongs to the creators of the Sims, so no profit is being made from this and it's just for fun.

Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

It had been an awful afternoon, and awful evening, and an awful night.

"Olga, you don't understand, humans can't live here. This place is for spiders and cockroaches and… and rats! It's tiny and damp and dark and-"

"Mo, I'm sorry, honey, but you'll just have to deal. This was the best I could get you on such a tiny budget. The neighbourhood's supposed to be very good."

"There is no neighbourhood, Olga. There's just me on stilts in the middle of a swamp. If I squint through the front door I can see another deathly shack down the road, but I'm pretty sure it's empty."

"Mo, that can't be all there is. I got you a job in the grocery store, for Pete's sake!"

"Yeah," Morrigan conceded. "I drove through the estate down the road a little yesterday. It seemed quite nice. It think it's okay once you get above the dam, but…"

"Look, honey. This is what you have now, you'll just have to make do."

Morrigan sighed into the phone and stared out of the bare window down the road. A wooden bridge connecting two sections of road over a pool of water and then a vast expanse of nothing. There weren't even any trees once you went over a certain point, just acres and acres of marshland.

"Yeah, I know," she replied, giving in. Olga was right, there was no point in fighting, really. She had what she had. "I'll… I'll call you later. I guess I should go look round the town or something. I don't have to get to work until four."

It was still grim outside as she put the phone back on the hook, fog swirling across the ground. The sky was clear and the sun was bright, though, so perhaps it wouldn't be so bad after all. Her truck was still standing in the road where she'd left it, but her clothes and books had been moved from the bags in the truck bed into her hovel, packed away neatly. The little food she'd brought with her was now residing in her fridge and she'd eaten a bland, badly-cooked meal of macaroni cheese the night before. She couldn't bring herself to force down the congealed leftovers sitting on the middle shelf, so instead she just scraped them into the bin and decided to eat when she was out. She still had a decent chunk of cash on her, she'd be okay.

Morrigan locked her door behind her, thankful to be out in the fresh air, and climbed gingerly down the two sets of stairs, climbing into her truck and steering it sadly down the road and up through the estate before the dam. It really was nice here – just a couple of streets of clean, fresh housing, all white walls and pale wood decking. She passed a gym that she decided she would visit later and a Laundromat that would come in useful if it did turn out that her washing machine didn't work after all.

A library and a bookstore stood on opposite sides of a junction. Hidden behind the bookstore was her final destination and new employer, the Grocery Grab supermarket. The doors were open and tinkly generic muzak was playing as she entered, the confirmation of her employment gripped tightly in her hand.

"Hello?" she called at the checkout counter, leaning over it in an attempt to look through the door behind the till.

"You have to ring the bell," said a friendly voice to her left, making her jump.

"Right," she said, noticing the little silver contraption on the surface of the counter for the first time and smiling at the man – blue polo shirt, white chinos, looked harmless.

"You new to the area?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah. Just moved here yesterday, actually. Supposedly I've been employed here."

He smiled. "Oh, okay. Well, then, welcome to town. I'm Oliver. Oliver Greenwood, I live a couple of blocks away."

He placed his shopping basket on the counter and reached out to shake her hand.

"Morrigan Vox," she said.

"Fox?"

"No… Vox. With a V. V for very."

"Unusual."

"Tell me about it."

When she didn't elaborate he picked up his groceries again with a smile and _ding_ed the bell on the counter. Within a few seconds a bustling woman in a stained apron has appeared with a smile and cheery "Hello!".

"Hi, Betty," said Oliver with a warm grin, "how's things?"

"Good, good," she said vaguely, tilting her head to one side inquisitively as she looked at Morrigan. "And who are you? Oliver, you've not got something going on behind Holly's back, have you?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and Oliver chuckled.

"Not a chance."

"I'm Morrigan Vox," Morrigan said, holding out the confirmation of employment papers.

"Oh, of course!" Betty brushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear and took the papers from Morrigan. "Just hold on a second, sweetie. Ollie, you want me to ring that up for you?"

He nodded and placed a full basket on the counter. Betty swiftly and surely ran each item past a scanner and took Oliver's money – cash, Morrigan noticed – and waved him a friendly goodbye.

"Nice to meet you, Morrigan," he said before exiting, and Morrigan nodded to him with a smile.

"You, too."

"Okay, come on then honey," Betty said, beckoning for Morrigan to follow her. She took her through the door at the back, up some stairs into a storeroom on the second floor.

"Now then, let me show you around. You ever worked in a store before?"

"Err, yeah, back home," she said, before internally correcting herself. This was her home now.

"Good, so you know how to work the register and everything?"

"Should do."

"Okie-dokie. I'll take you through the stocks and we'll get an apron on you, and if you have any problems don't be afraid to ask."

Betty's friendly demeanour started to eat through Morrigan's apprehensions and she smiled at the cheerful, middle-aged woman good-naturedly. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

At 7pm Morrigan stepped out into the fresh evening air with a smile on her face, certain that her previous grim mood had been a mistake. The people here were polite and friendly, the weather was nice and, according to Betty, there was a diner a few minutes down the road. And Morrigan was hungry.

The walk in the cool breeze coming across the reservoir was refreshing and Morrigan pulled off her hairband, from which most of her hair had escaped anyway, and looped it around her wrist. She shrugged off her jacket, the pink strappy top underneath shivering against her skin, and leant against the brickwork at the top of the esplanade, looking out at the calm water of the artificial lake the people generations ago had created.

A stone mermaid sat atop a pedestal there, hand carefully placed across her chest to prevent public indecency. There was no graffiti on the stone. Across the water Morrigan could see the nice, modern estate she had come through, broad wooden decks a pale brown against the green of the grass beneath and the grey of the bay surrounding them. Beyond that she could see the flood plains her new house (new to her, anyway, certainly not new in any other sense) was built on, and, beyond the low humps of marshy land, open water.

She turned to her left, but the hills, down which the twin rivers that gave the town its name cascaded, rose too high in the distance and she could not see the outline of Bridgeport beyond, even though she knew it was there. She could see a lighthouse on an outcropping in the distance, though. A street magician was performing on the sidewalk a little further down and she dropped a simoleon into his jar after watching him produce a bunch of flowers from nowhere.

The diner appeared to be built from an old train car, surrounded by flowers and tables. The flashing sign above it proclaimed it to be "Brunton's Boxcar Diner", but Morrigan didn't linger to take in the sights any longer as the delicious smell of sausages was wafting out into the night evening air and welcoming music along with the chatter of voices was leaking out between the slightly ajar doors.

She stepped inside, pulling shut the door behind her, and ordered a sweet tea and a grilled cheese sandwich from the counter, choosing a booth and sitting down. Out of the window she could see the beach across the way, the gazebo sitting prettily on the grass. That would be a nice place for a picnic, she thought, once she'd made some friends around here. Friends closer to her own age. Nice as Betty was, she was a little too motherly for Mo to want to spend a day with her outside of work.

A man with a young child sat in the booth behind her, and as she sipped her tea and ate her food she listened to him struggling with the little girl.

"Come on sweetie, just a bite."

"No."

"Just one."

"No."

"If you don't eat it you can't have ice cream."

"Don't want ice cream."

"You'll be hungry later."

"Won't."

"Will."

"Won't."

"Yes you will, Pansy. Eat your fries."

"Don't want fries."

"You love fries!"

"Not anymore."

"Fine, I'll eat them, then."

"NO!"

The little girl pushed the plate off the table. It didn't smash, instead it landed on its rim and rolled across the floor, scattering bits of French fry and splatters of ketchup across the ground. It came to rest, ketchup-side-down, on Morrigan's foot. Gingerly, she picked it up and handed it back to the man, who looked mortified.

"I am _so_ sorry."

"It's fine," Mo said as he passed her a napkin guiltily. She wiped a blob of ketchup off the end of her boot. There was so many stains already sunk into the suede you couldn't even see it. "Really, it isn't a big deal."

The little girl – Pansy? – was staring at Morrigan was big, dark eyes, sucking on the tip of her thumb. Morrigan smiled and winked and Pansy giggled, looking away.

"I'm Phoenix," said the man, "this is Pansy. And we really are both very sorry."

He took another napkin and started to mop ketchup off the diner floor, and Morrigan was left wondering why he didn't just call over a waitress to do it, but before she could say anything he was done, a pile of dusty French fries placed back on the plate beside the sauce-covered napkins.

"I'm Morrigan," she replied as Pansy clambered up onto the bench next to her and grabbed a portion of her hair with sticky fingers. Morrigan grimaced and Phoenix looked even more apologetic than before.

"Pansy, let go. I'm sorry."

"You can stop saying that, it's okay. I'm used to little kids."

Pansy stuck her finger into her own nose, then carefully examined what came out before wiping it on the cracked leather of the seat and going back to examining Morrigan's hair.

"Orange," she said after a little while, letting the (now grimy) chunk of Morrigan's red hair go and dropping down onto the floor.

"She seems sweet," Morrigan said, rearranging her hair beneath her hairband. Phoenix laughed and nodded.

"Don't let her fool you, she's a good kid really. Just at that stage, you know? Inquisistive. You new in town?"

Morrigan nodded.

"Where you from?"

"Originally? East Jerome."

"Oh, yeah? Don't get many people down here from the cities."

Morrigan barked out a laugh, and Pansy clambered back up on the seat.

"How come your gloves are different colours?" she asked, pulling at one of her dark pigtails, yanking out the ribbon that kept it up and dropping it on the floor. Phoenix rubbed at his face tiredly.

Morrigan looked down at her hands, clad in fingerless gloves – one pink, one a dirty cream. "One of them got in the wash with someone's red shirt," she said wryly. "It was an accident."

"Oh," Pansy said, going back to sucking on her thumb and staring out at the few other people in the diner.

"Yeah, I'm trying something new," she said to Phoenix. "Figured I might do better in suburbia than I did back there."

He frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

Morrigan paused, looking down at the table.

"I don't want to pry, you don't have to say anything," Phoenix said, absently reaching for one of the French fried before realising what he was doing and dropping it back onto the plate, looking disgusted.

"No, it's okay. I was at college in Bridgeport, but I…" she paused and took a deep breath. "I flunked out end of first year. So I made some calls, an old friend got me a job somewhere new, and I ended up here. That's all."

Phoenix nodded. "What were you studying? If you don't mind me asking."

Mo grinned wryly. "Archaeology."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? That's interesting."

"I thought so." She said a little sadly. "But… I guess it just wasn't meant to be, you know? I've never been much good at the academic stuff, essays and all that. I worked so hard to get there, though… I guess I just… I don't know. Stuff just happens sometimes."

He nodded sagely. "I get that. I used to be a policeman."

"Yeah?"

"Yup. I was pretty darn good, too. But then my wife passed away."

Morrigan flinched. "Oh, God. I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "It was a couple of years ago now, but someone had to look after this one," he tickled Pansy, making her shriek with laughter and tumble down under the table. She hauled herself up onto the seat next to her father and curled up beside him, still sucking on her thumb. "Her and brother were handfuls, couldn't just leave them to a sitter every day. So I quit, then when this one was old enough to start day care I got a job at the elementary school."

"You're a teacher?" Morrigan glanced out of the window, suddenly embarrassed that she'd told him about her poor academic record. She took a deep breath, noticing how dark it was getting for the first time. "I should be going," she said, "it was nice to meet you two."

Phoenix looked perplexed by her sudden change in mood, but shook her hand when she offered it, and she reached down and handed the blue ribbon from Pansy's hair back to the drowsy toddler, chucking her under the chin before leaving with a wave.

A pair of gittering golden eyes watched her go.

AN – I had someone ask me if this was going to be a vampire romance. Unequivocally _no,_ is the answer to that, so don't panic.


End file.
